


An Axe To Break The Ice

by akagregory



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-30
Updated: 2014-09-14
Packaged: 2018-02-11 00:50:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 8,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2046756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akagregory/pseuds/akagregory
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mycroft is dead, and John just doesn't know what to do about Sherlock.</p><p>Multi-chapter, eventual Johnlock.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first Sherlock fic, and in fact my first fic ever! Not beta'd or Brit-picked or any of that. I own nothing but my errors.

He didn’t go to the funeral. Of course he didn’t go to the funeral. The idea itself was preposterous, and yet still people were surprised. Disappointed. Judgmental. John had said, “I know you didn’t always get on, hell, I wanted to punch the man more often than not, but he was your brother, Sherlock.” Sherlock had looked back at him, silent, and whatever John had seen on his face had put the matter to rest.

Everyone assumed that Sherlock’s absence was the result of unnatural coldness, or of a grief so deep and consuming that it prevented him from even leaving the flat. The truth of it was that Sherlock knew that Mycroft would have found nothing more galling than to be laid out in a coffin, small and powerless, with his little brother standing above him alive and thriving and feigning heartbreak.

He remembered a time when Mycroft had been ill and laid up for weeks in bed. He had been 14, and if possible even more pompous and self-important than the fully grown Mycroft. Sherlock had wanted to see him, but Mycroft had denied him entry to his room every day. Even as a child, though, Sherlock had ways of getting his way. He had become convinced that Mycroft must have sustained a disfiguring rash of some sort as a result of his illness, and he was desperate to study it. What he saw instead, the day he finally gave up on his more elaborate plans for illicit bedroom entry and settled for looking in the window from up a tree, was a Mycroft bereft of his immaculate school uniform. A Mycroft feeble and dressing-gowned, small and cowed. When Mycroft was well enough to get up and about again, he came out into the garden to find Sherlock working on his latest experiment and sneered, calling Sherlock a stupid little boy. The experiment had been something to do with moss, he thought; he had deleted most of that autumn. What he did remember was the relish with which he gloated over Mycroft's weakness, and how red Mycroft's face had turned when he told him that his striped dressing gown made him look positively rotund.

Mycroft's pride aside, Sherlock could not abide a roomful of mourners. Mourners of _Mycroft_ , no less. Aside from their parents and a smattering of elderly aunts and uncles, the only people in attendance would be sycophants. Perhaps an enemy or two. Certainly a few from the government who felt obligated. And John, who was only going for Sherlock’s sake, even after Sherlock announced he would be staying home.

Sherlock bore no great affection for Mycroft, but he respected the man. He knew that he would not be able to hold his tongue when confronted with so much false grief and so many hollow condolences. Little as he cared for social decorum, it would not do to make a scene at his brother’s funeral, and Mycroft would not thank him for it.

No, he did not go. He did not cry or reflect. He first checked the website for cases only to be confronted with a handful of condolence comments from his more avid fans. After that he shunned the sitting room completely and spent the rest of the day studying the growth of mold he had been tracking in a petri dish over the past several weeks.

It seemed that little time had passed since John had left, dressed in his only black suit (a cheap one, and not at all becoming), but when he heard the door to the flat open and shut followed by John’s careful footsteps, it had grown dark outside. After hanging up his coat, John walked hesitantly into the kitchen.

“All right, Sherlock?”

“Hm.” Sherlock adjusted the microscope’s focus. John shifted uncomfortably.

“Er, right then, I’ll just be over here if you need me,” John said before settling in his chair with the novel he’d been slogging through for weeks. The man had an entirely nonsensical dedication to finishing every book he started, no matter how much he hated it. Completely illogical, and often resulting in highly inconvenient bad moods.

Sherlock remained at the table, but after twenty minutes had passed he accepted that he was paying more attention to John’s escalating frustration in the next room than the mold in front of him. He set the petri dish aside and moved to his chair across from John.

“You know you really should just give up if you hate it so much. I could tell you the end, if you like.”

John looked at him incredulously.

“I suppose you’re not even going to ask me how it was,” he eventually replied, his face tight with attempted calm.

“The book?” Sherlock said, though he knew it wasn’t the book.

“It was very Mycroft. Mycroftian? Very stately, everything in its proper place. No undue fits of emotion. Your father cried a bit, though.”

“As well he might.”

John's face cracked at that, a flash of anger softening into a concern tinged with wariness.

“Are you putting this on, Sherlock? You don’t need to hide from me. I know you must feel something in all of this.”

Sherlock sighed, and stood.

“Goodnight, John,” he said, and walked into his bedroom. He shut the door behind him and stood for a moment, waiting. After he heard John slowly make his way up to his own room, he opened the door softly and went back to his microscope.


	2. The Sand That Was Once You

The funeral had been terrible. Not in the way that funerals are normally terrible, but in its own unique way, as befitted the death of a Holmes. John hadn’t been sure what to expect. Sherlock had not been forthcoming with details of his family’s customs, and in fact had avoided all mention of the event whenever possible. In essentials it was a standard ceremony. The usual words were said, and all the key pieces were in place (family, flowers, coffin, corpse). The entire affair was strangely airless, though. The majority of the mourners seemed to be either work colleagues or extended family, none close enough to Mycroft to be truly grieving. John was one of the youngest in attendance. He had known that Mycroft had not socialized outside of what was necessary, but the dearth of friends and close family made Sherlock's absence stand out all the more. 

In his brief conversation with Sherlock’s mother (one of the few who seemed truly affected, though in a quiet way), John learned that Mycroft himself had arranged everything, and had in fact had directives for his funeral in place for over a decade. That Mycroft would have planned his own funeral and that Sherlock would not attend it should not, in retrospect, have surprised John, but it did.

As Sherlock’s closest friend John had found himself his spokesman for the afternoon, explaining away Sherlock’s absence in vague terms to those bold enough to comment. He overheard more than one whispered conversation on the subject, ranging from “The poor dear! Heaven knows it’s hard to bury a brother” to “An absolute disgrace. Has he no respect?” Each comment had angered John in equal measure, whether commiserating or censuring. Who were these people to judge Sherlock? To pity him? They didn’t even know him. But what made him angriest was that not one of them said anything that he hadn’t thought himself, at least for a moment, when Sherlock said he wouldn’t come. 

The worst of it was Mycroft himself, lying still and solemn in his coffin, looking for all the world like an ordinary man who occupied a minor position in the British government. John had never been afraid of Mycroft, or intimidated by him, but he had been a force to be reckoned with nonetheless. He had been the only person who knew more about Sherlock than John did, and it wasn't until he was gone that John realized how much he had come to rely on Mycroft's knowledge, and the unexpected rides in sleek town cars in which he had shared it with John. It occurred to him that little as he knew about Mycroft, he in fact knew him better than the majority of the people in the room, and he took a moment to grieve for the man he had never troubled to really _know_.

 

After it was over he felt ill-prepared to face Sherlock, so he met Greg for a pint before going home. They had begun making weekly trips to a small, somewhat shabby establishment near the clinic shortly after Mary’s death when Sherlock had been abroad at Mycroft’s behest, supposedly in hiding but in reality (as John would learn later) putting the finishing touches on his final takedown of Moriarty. John didn’t like to think about that time, but the funeral had brought back the memories (though aside from Sherlock’s absence the two events bore little resemblance).

Greg had avoided asking about the funeral, instead amusing John with stories of recent cases deemed too simple to merit Sherlock’s involvement. Greg had been the only friend whose company John could stand in those awful six months before Sherlock returned. He didn’t waste time on pity or comfort, but behaved like himself, regaling John with stories of workplace squabbles between Sally and the newly-reinstated Anderson, and his own continuing struggles with his wife. Sherlock had been surprised at their increased chumminess when he came back, and was more than a little annoyed that their outings continued with the same regularity after his return.

He would have loved nothing more than to stay until closing, getting truly plastered in the process, but he was worried about Sherlock, who had been by and large attempting to behave as though nothing had happened. John knew him well enough to know that he was preoccupied, and that even in a sulk he was only going through the motions. That Sherlock should behave differently after the death of his brother was natural, but if this was grief it was a strange grief. And if it wasn't grief, he had no idea what it was. He had asked Mrs. Hudson to drop in on him during the day in case he chose to express his feelings by setting fire to the flat or shooting more holes in the wall, but he knew Sherlock was more than capable of doing damage without attracting the landlady's notice.

When he got back to the flat Sherlock had made no comment on the fact that the funeral had ended hours ago, or that John was somewhat tipsy. He hadn’t even seemed to notice. This more than anything else made John realize how not okay his flatmate was, and he was determined to make him talk about it. But Sherlock was nothing if not stubborn, and he met John’s inquiries with a cold silence before leaving the room altogether. He had given up for the night, but when he went upstairs (only to hear Sherlock almost immediately come back out of his bedroom), he began to work through the puzzle of what exactly to do about him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title comes from "Going To Your Funeral, Pt. 1" by Eels


	3. Take Your Time

For the first few days, he left Sherlock alone. There was a chance his flatmate just needed some extra time to process things, and he wanted to be sensitive. He hoped rather than expected that this approach would work, but he didn’t want to wake the sleeping bear of Sherlock’s emotions unless absolutely necessary. He went about his business as usual, making breakfast in the morning and leaving tea on the table for Sherlock, who was practically glued to his microscope whenever he wasn’t in his room.

John didn’t know what the experiment was, but it was growing increasingly malodorous with every passing day. It was just as well that he had already decided to give Sherlock his space, because he couldn’t stand to be downstairs for any stretch of time. He went for a lot of walks through the city in those three days. He had a lot of thinking to do himself.

On the fourth day, he met Stamford for lunch. He hadn't seen much of Mike over the last year or so, having been surprised and a bit offended when his old friend had skipped his wedding with the flimsy excuse of “a previous engagement,” but Mike had been there for Mary’s funeral. One of the few. It occurred to him that Mike and Mary had met only once, briefly, right when she and John had first started seeing each other. He wondered how much his friend knew about her. When he had learned the truth about his wife he hadn’t exactly shared it with anybody outside of the Holmes family, and he had made sure that her obituary was brief and vague ( _Mary Watson died on the fourth of February. She leaves behind a husband and many loving friends_ ). But though Mike and Sherlock weren’t exactly mates, they crossed paths now and then at Bart’s and were on friendly terms (or as close to friendly terms as anybody ever got with Sherlock), and you never knew when Sherlock would be struck by a fit of chattiness. 

He’d seen Mike only twice since the funeral and his friend had steered clear of the subject of Mary altogether, focusing instead on how John was feeling about being back at 221B the first time, and how John was coping with Sherlock’s absence the second.

This time John was more than happy to steer the conversation toward Mike’s children, and the new baby he and his wife were expecting in a couple of months. Stamford had always managed to seem at ease in his life in a way that John would say he envied if you were to ask, but that deep down he knew he wouldn’t want for himself. He had a comfortable job and a comfortable life, conventional goals that he met one by one, each at its proper time. His wife, Meredith, was lovely and smart, and his children were button-cute and bright. He would have been entirely insufferable if he weren’t such a good man, friendly to everybody not out of a sense of social obligation, but out of genuine good nature. He also had impeccable instincts about people, as he had proven when introducing John and Sherlock, and there was a part of John that always wondered if he hadn’t suspected that something about Mary was off.

The meal passed pleasantly enough, but after an hour of listening to the details of a perfectly lovely life John was feeling even more determined to put things right with Sherlock, so that they could go on being nothing like the Stamfords of the world.

He returned to Baker Street and was surprised to hear voices as he went up the stairs. Just as he was wondering whether Mrs. Hudson had decided to try cheering Sherlock up again, the door to the flat opened and Sherlock’s mother came out looking flustered. After slamming the door behind her, she nearly ran into him on the stairs and had to steady herself on the railing.

“Are you all right, Mrs. Holmes?” he asked. 

She hurried past him to the door, and, seeming to come back to herself, turned and said, “See if you can talk him ‘round, John. I’m about at the end of my tether.”

John stood at the top of the stairs and watched her leave, wondering what on earth Sherlock had said to upset her so.

***

The experiment had been done for two days, but Sherlock kept it going as its increasingly strong smell had a positive correlation with John finding flimsy excuses to leave the flat. In the years that he had been away after faking his death he could never have imagined being at 221B and not wanting John there with him. When he had returned to find that John had moved out, the flat had seemed empty and cavernous without him. But the consequence of his prolonged absence was that Sherlock had become used to having the place to himself and though he nearly always preferred the flat with John in it, there were times when his presence was suffocating.

The chemical reaction he had inadvertently caused with his mold sample was suffocating in a more literal sense, but it was easy enough to put a mask over his face and crack a window. He made sure to busy himself at the kitchen table when John was around, but the moment he left the flat Sherlock would make his way to the couch to think. He found it impossible to think with John there lately, and he was getting nowhere with his problem even with the luxury of John’s recent absences.

On the fourth day after the funeral Sherlock took out his violin for the first time in weeks. John was out with Stamford, and would most likely go for another walk after, returning in time to try to force dinner on him. He should have had plenty of time to vent some of his frustration by scraping at the strings, but before he had even worked up a good head of steam there had been a knock, unmistakably his mother’s. He considered pretending not to be in, but she didn’t need to be clever to know he was there with the racket he was making (and she was clever, of course; clever enough to know what Sherlock was thinking with every note).

He put the violin back in the case and unlocked the door. He wouldn’t go so far as to open it for her himself, not wanting to give the misleading impression that she was welcome there. She let herself in, gave him an appraising look, and sat down in his chair. Ordinarily he would have taken John’s, but he preferred to stay standing for this conversation.

“Sherlock, you need to stop messing about. We can’t postpone it any longer.”

“I don’t see why I have to be there.”

“It was in the terms of the will. You know that.”

“It’s not as though Mycroft will know either way. Unless you mean to suggest that he’s looking down on us from some fool’s fantasy of an afterlife?”

“Hardly. But it’s only right.”

“Right and wrong are subjective, and I’m not going. It would be ghastly.”

She stood then, and walked toward him.

“Do you imagine that I’m looking forward to this? I want it to be over and done with, as it would have been already if you had just cooperated in the first place.”

“If Mycroft had known what the circumstances of his death would be, do you really think he would want me there?”

“Well as you said, he won’t know either way. And I want you there, as does your father. And really Sherlock, how you can claim to be so much cleverer than the rest of the world and yet blame yourself for what happened-"

“That’s _enough_! I’ve said I’m not going and you won’t change my mind. I’ll send one of my homeless network to go in my place. I daresay you won’t even notice the difference.”

Sherlock picked up the violin again and started bowing randomly and with great force until he heard the door slam behind him. He went to the window to be sure that she actually left, and then slumped down in his chair. He was surprised to hear the door open again a moment later, and to see John walk through it looking confused.

“What was that all about?” he asked.

Sherlock could see that his mother had said something to him. No details, but enough that John was sure to pester him for the truth until he couldn’t stand it any longer. After that it was only a matter of time before John would talk him into going, and he was too exhausted to resist.

“You and I are going to Sussex,” he said, and left the flat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title comes from "Time" by David Bowie


	4. I See Our House on a Hill

John set his bag on the bed and looked around the room. It was small but pleasant, full of well-worn furniture. In addition to the bed there was an armchair next to a small bureau, and a large bookshelf between the closet and the door leading to the bathroom. Sherlock’s room was on the other side, with his parents across the hall. Mr. and Mrs. Holmes had come separately several hours earlier and were out walking the grounds when he and Sherlock arrived. Sherlock had shown John to his room and retreated to his own, leaving John not knowing quite what to do with himself.

After Sherlock’s announcement that they would be going to Sussex he had given up all pretense of working on an experiment and had taken to leaving the flat for long stretches at a time. One evening he had come home with his sleeves torn and covered in mud.

“Did Lestrade find you a case?” he had asked. Sherlock only grunted in reply, heading into the bathroom to clean himself up. He asked Greg himself the next time they met for a pint.

_“I don’t know anything about that, mate. I haven’t seen him since, well…”_

John found this worrying, but more worrying was that more than anything he felt relieved that Sherlock wasn’t going on cases without him. They spoke very little, and any attempt on John’s part to introduce a subject more serious than the heat of the tea was met with an icy expression and silence. It felt petty to worry that Sherlock was upset with him at a time like this, but he couldn’t help himself. The man was a hurricane, and a nuisance, and a right prat a great deal of the time, but John knew what it was like to live without him and he wasn’t interested in becoming reacquainted with the feeling.

 

A knock on the door jolted John out of his reverie. He crossed the room and opened the door to find Sherlock’s father. Mr. Holmes shook his hand and sat in the armchair. John sat on the bed.

“John, so glad you could join us. Mycroft would have appreciated it, I’m sure.”

“Of course. How was your walk?”

“Very nice, thank you. When the boys were young we used to come here during their summer holidays and walk the grounds together.”

“What was that like?” John asked with a knowing smirk. Mr. Holmes chuckled.

“It was chaos. Mycroft was never much for the outdoors and wanted it over as fast as possible, and Sherlock would insist we stop whenever he saw something interesting. They’d be at each other’s throats before we made it a mile. When Mycroft was old enough to look after himself we let him stay behind, and Sherlock started going off on his own soon after.”

“Must be more pleasant now, then.”

“Oh, I don’t know, I rather miss the excitement.”

They fell into conversation about the house, which had been in the Holmes family for generations. When Sherlock had told him that they would be visiting his family’s Sussex estate he had expected something quite grand, but the house itself was more similar in scale to the cottage where they’d spent Christmas the previous year. The house was certainly old and well-furnished, but it was compact and sensible as well. The real grandeur was in the expansive grounds, full of hills and streams and stands of trees. Sherlock seemed so wholly tied to the city that it was hard to picture him living here, even as a boy, and John imagined he must have been terribly bored during those summers. The nearest town was several miles off, and from what John had seen so far was not likely to have offered much by way of amusement.

John expected that Sherlock would stay locked in his room the rest of the night, and was surprised when he joined the family for dinner that evening. It was a quiet affair, as things had been rather chilly between Sherlock and his mother since the day she came to the flat. John and Mr. Holmes carried the conversation, while Sherlock picked at his food absently, his gaze unfocused. John knew his expressions well enough to know that Sherlock was thinking, and rather hard, about something.

After dinner was over, John offered to clear and Mr. and Mrs. Holmes retired to bed, citing exhaustion from their earlier walk. When he was finished with the dishes, he went out into the sitting room to find Sherlock stretched out on a couch not quite long enough for his lanky frame.

“All right, Sherlock?”

“Oh yes, never better,” he drawled sarcastically. John took this as a good sign, as annoyance was a more promising response than ice.

“Your father told me a bit about the summers you spent here. It sounded completely lovely, so I assume you hated it?”

Sherlock cocked an eyebrow at him.

“Yes, quite.”

“No murders in the village, then?”

“Not as such, though I nearly committed one or two myself. Insufferable place. Full of idiots.”

John laughed, and he thought he saw Sherlock’s lip begin to curl as well before he schooled his features back into passivity.

“So, tomorrow.”

Sherlock sighed dramatically.

“Yes, tomorrow. The day after today.”

“Am I going to have to drug you, or will you behave yourself?”

“I shall be an exemplary mourner.”

John had known from the start that Sherlock’s utter emotionlessness when discussing his brother’s death was a mask, but it still troubled him to see it. He knew that there was feeling lurking there. He had seen Sherlock’s face that night. But bringing that up would get him nowhere with his friend, so he said goodnight and retreated upstairs to his room. Progress had been made, he told himself. This had been their longest conversation in weeks.

 

***

 

The estate was much as it ever was, though rather smaller than he remembered it. The furniture was all the same. Chairs upholstered in insipid floral patterns, beds too low to the ground, couches too short and too squashy for a good stretch. As soon as he had heard his parents return from their walk Sherlock had climbed out the window of his bedroom, as he had countless times as a boy (more gracefully then than now; it was a tight fit for a grown man). He had always enjoyed walking the grounds here. It had been the only bearable thing about those summers, especially when Mycroft had begun staying home and his parents had given up trying to stop him going off on his own whenever he liked. There was enough of interest in the land to keep him occupied, and the prospect was really rather picturesque. He of course much preferred the city, but the countryside in small doses had its charms.

After walking for rather less time than he would have liked, he went back to the house, cleaned himself up, and joined the rest for dinner. It would be prudent to remain in his parents’ good graces as long as possible, though he couldn’t imagine getting through the whole three days without incident. John would like it too, he knew.

When he had explained to John that Mycroft had willed his ashes to be taken to this house and spread over the grounds by his whole family, he had seemed surprised.

“I didn’t know Mycroft was so sentimental,” he had said.

“He wasn’t. I suppose he thought it would be a proper alternative to being interred in the family mausoleum. He could never abide that place. He said he drew the line at spending eternity with Aunt Millicent, when our parents took us there.”

“Or perhaps he just loved his family.”

Sherlock had made a face at that and changed the subject to the logistics of the journey. They would arrive at the estate on Wednesday afternoon, spread the ashes on Thursday, touring the grounds as they hadn’t done since Sherlock was fourteen, and spend Friday in the village, visiting with old acquaintances of his parents. John had not asked why Sherlock wanted him to come along, as it was really meant to just be the family, and for that he was grateful. His parents had acceded willingly to this alteration to the plans, perhaps recognizing the benefits of a buffer.

John had filled that role superbly at dinner, making idle conversation with his father on any number of boring subjects, and distracting his mother from shooting him icy looks. She was still angry with him, he knew, but there was nothing to be done but suffer through this morbid exercise as peaceably as possible.

After dinner he had been thinking over the subject that had occupied him for the majority of his earlier walk when John came to talk to him. It had been a while since he had tried, and it occurred to Sherlock that the best way to handle John during this trip would be to act a bit more like himself. He would have plenty of time for reflection later.

 

When John went to bed Sherlock crept out the back door to walk by moonlight. He had been revisiting a particular memory of a conversation with Mycroft he had shortly before meeting John. He had just been thrown out of his flat on Montague street (one too many accidental explosions, and a landlord far less reasonable than Mrs. Hudson to answer to), and Mycroft had, over his vociferous protestations, insisted on arranging a room for him in an upscale hotel while he searched for a more permanent residence. 

“I don’t want you falling into old habits, Sherlock,” he had said.

“It’s not as though I intend to sleep rough. Where I stay and what I do there is none of your concern.”

“If it is not my concern, then whose concern is it? Do tell me to whom I can relinquish your care, please. I assure you I find it just as tiresome as you do.”

“I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself, thank you.”

Mycroft had laughed at that, a sneer on his face that caused Sherlock’s hands to curl into fists at his side.

“Find a flatmate and you may choose your own home without my interference. Until then, you’ll stay here.”

“Oh for goodness sake, a flatmate? Have you spent much time among the general populace of late? Nobody would last a day.”

“Perhaps somebody will surprise you,” Mycroft had said, folding his newspaper. “Now I’ve arranged a car to take you to the hotel. I expect the room to remain intact until such time as you find your own accommodations.”

Sherlock had been furious enough to purposely start a fire at the first hotel, but after a few days at the second he had gotten in touch with Mrs. Hudson and less than a week later he had met John.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title comes from "Spring" by Bill Callahan


	5. All I Have Are Secrets

John woke to a muffled crash. The sound, which clearly came from the direction of Sherlock’s room, was faint, but years in the army meant that John could spring to alertness at the slightest disturbance. He was halfway to the bathroom door when he hesitated. Surely Sherlock was just getting up to typical Sherlockian hijinks, and wouldn’t welcome an intrusion. On the other hand, Sherlock could be in the process of destroying his furniture for all John knew. After a few moments of indecision, his curiosity got the better of him and he strode into the bathroom, knocking on the door to Sherlock’s room perfunctorily before entering without waiting for an answer.

Sherlock was sat on the floor, cradling his right hand in his left. John noticed the broken glass before the blood, as Sherlock had reflexively tried to hide his injury the moment he entered.

“What on earth have you been up to in here?” he asked.

"Nothing that need concern you." 

“Did the window do something to offend you, then?” John gestured toward what remained of the bedroom window. Sherlock had evidently punched through the lower right-hand pane.

“Honestly John, use your eyes. The glass would be outside if I had broken it from in here." Only Sherlock could look that exasperated while bleeding profusely. "It’s been nearly two decades since anybody stayed in this room. The window got stuck and wouldn’t open from the outside.”

“What were you doing outside?”

“Out for a walk."

“In the middle of the night?”

“Obviously.”

John knew better than to continue this line of inquiry. Sherlock going for a walk in the middle of the night was hardly unusual anyway. Instead, he crouched down in front of his friend.

“Let me see that hand.”

Sherlock reluctantly stuck his right hand out. The cuts were superficial, but would need cleaning.

John shook his head and grabbed Sherlock’s uninjured hand, pulling him to his feet and leading him into the bathroom. Sherlock didn’t protest as John ran his hand under the tap and cleaned off the blood. He rooted around in the medicine cabinet and found some bandages and antibiotic cream to dress the wounds.

“Far be it from me to question your logic, but it occurs to me that you might have tried calling me before you resorted to climbing in a second story window,” he said, when he was satisfied with his work.

“I didn’t want to wake you.” John raised his eyebrows at that, as a highlight reel of the dozens of times Sherlock had unceremoniously barged into his room at all hours for reasons ranging from “Quickly, John! Mr. Stevenson’s murderer will reach his son before us if we don’t hurry!” to “What have you done with my toenails?” flashed through his mind.

“Fine. I was hoping to avoid exactly this scenario.”

“And what is this scenario?”

“You quizzing me on my activities. I fancied a walk. The time of day didn’t much signify.”

“I know you, Sherlock. You only go for walks when you’re trying to work something out and I strongly doubt you’ve managed to get a case in the past twelve hours.”

“Your point being?”

John sighed and cast his eyes toward the ceiling. The direct approach had not served him well these past weeks, but he was too tired to phrase it carefully.

“If there’s something on your mind, I’d rather you came to me with it.”

***

Sherlock looked at John for a long moment, weighing his options. His plan of slipping back in unnoticed had failed spectacularly, so much so that he found himself in closer proximity to John than he had been in weeks. There were really only two things that John would believe were troubling him enough to necessitate a moonlight stroll, and he went with the less uncomfortable.

“Do you want to hear that I was thinking about tomorrow? Fine. I was thinking about tomorrow. Very well deduced.”

John looked at him with such pity that it made his skin crawl.

“Listen Sherlock, I don’t know how you’re feeling now but please know that it’s ok, whatever it is. I can’t imagine what you must be going through, but-”

“You’re imagining what you would be going through in my place, and extrapolating from there. If Harry were to finally drink herself into an early grave I don’t doubt that you would be devastated. I, however, am not devastated.”

“What are you, then?”

How John made it through each day with that face of his was a mystery to Sherlock. Even to a layman every emotion would be clear from his expressions alone. What he saw then was a sort of desperate frustration. John had been working up to this question for some time.

Angry. Frustrated. Exhausted. Impatient. Confused. Melancholy. Guilty. Sherlock searched for a word with enough truth in it to placate John without leading to too many follow-up questions.

“Regretful, I suppose.”

That shut him right up. Surprise and sadness flashed across John’s face, and just the tiniest bit of hurt.

“Leave the bandage on overnight and I’ll look at it in the morning,” he said, and went back to his room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title comes from "Ghost of a Shark" by Tom McRae


	6. Let the Dead Bury the Dead

In the middle of a stand of trees with the three Holmeses, John felt decidedly out of place. They had gotten an early start, as it seemed everybody shared the common goal of putting the spreading of the ashes behind them as quickly as possible. Sherlock had not uttered a word when John looked over his wounded hand that morning, though he did obey John’s orders to shower and dress, and had allowed him to rebandage the hand when he was finished. Now his friend was leaning against a tree several yards from the rest of them with his arms crossed, a blank expression on his face.

They had walked over about a kilometer of hilly terrain to reach this particular bit of woods. Mrs. Holmes said that this was where Mycroft had enjoyed going the most as a boy. Before he had outgrown games and before Sherlock was old enough to affect disdain, the two brothers had played pirates here, using a large rock at the top of a hill as a ship and forcing one another to walk the plank for their various maritime crimes. Sherlock bristled a bit, as he always did when his parents brought up such subjects, but he kept quiet.

Mr. and Mrs. Holmes had eulogized their son at the funeral and nobody expected Sherlock to have any words to say, so the ashes were spread without fanfare. The family stood in silence for several minutes when it was done, Sherlock’s parents both with tears in their eyes, and Sherlock staring at the ground. John stood a respectful distance behind them until they roused themselves from their reverie and walked out toward the field on the other side of the trees.

The rest of the morning was passed in walking to the furthest edge of the property. They stopped to eat at the bottom of a hill at the far edge of a field, though Sherlock and his mother only nibbled at their sandwiches. The tour of the grounds continued through a denser forest where according to Mrs. Holmes Sherlock had once set up a clubhouse of sorts, where he attempted to live on his own for the whole summer when he was thirteen. He had only made it two weeks before his provisions ran out and he came skulking back to the house, telling everybody that it was boring in the woods. John looked over at Sherlock fondly, but he didn’t seem to have heard the conversation at all.

By the time they made it back to the house it was the middle of the afternoon, and Sherlock’s parents retired upstairs for a nap, leaving Sherlock and John alone in the sitting room.

“I’m fine,” Sherlock said after several minutes of silence.

“I didn’t ask.”

“You were wondering, though.”

“Well I suppose you must be relieved that that bit is over.”

“Hmm.”

They lapsed into silence once more, and John began to think about heading upstairs to check his email until Sherlock suddenly moved from the chair he had been sitting in and sat next to John on the couch.

“To tell you the truth it’s tomorrow I dread more than anything.”

“Why’s that?”

“My parents are friends with the most dreadfully insipid people in the village, and I’m to be expected to act ‘normal’ around them. I expect I shall give offense everywhere we go without even trying.”

“Sounds like a normal day for you, then.”

Sherlock gave him a look, and then cracked a smile.

“John, about last night-“

John cleared his throat and looked away. 

“I’m glad that you came here. I’m sorry if I’ve made it unpleasant for you.”

“You don’t need to worry about me, Sherlock. There’s nowhere I’d rather be.”

 

***

 

Sherlock had decided that it would be best if he spent the entirety of the ash-spreading excursion firmly ensconced in his mind palace. Even John, who had seemingly endless patience with him, seemed to expect that he would make a scene, so surely nobody would object to him remaining completely silent. It proved an effective strategy, and at the end of it his mother had even squeezed his shoulder and given him a fond look before going upstairs.

John had passed the day in silence too, though he had seemed fully present throughout the day. It was an odd gift of his, to remain still and quiet in the presence of others without seeming cold or unsociable. Of all John’s many good qualities, this was one of those Sherlock prized most highly. He began to feel ashamed of his recent behavior, knowing that he had hurt John’s feelings with the previous night’s brush-off.

Before his return from the dead Sherlock could have counted the number of sincere apologies he had made on one hand, but in the past two years rarely a month had gone by that he didn’t find himself apologizing to John for something or other. After everything with Mary he even found himself apologizing for things he wasn’t responsible for, something he had always found ridiculous before but suddenly understood. “I’m sorry this happened to you” instead of “I’m sorry I did this to you.” Life had not been kind to John Watson, and that was unacceptable.

Mycroft had often commented to Sherlock that he was very fortunate in his choice of a partner. He would affect a mocking tone when speaking of their friendship in the early years, but as time went by he seemed to see at least a little of the true value of John. Sherlock wondered if Mycroft had ever been jealous. Even as a boy Mycroft had never had any real friends. He was considered popular at school, Sherlock knew, but Mycroft had considered it all networking. He’d never troubled to go past the surface with those people.

Sitting on the couch with John now, Sherlock felt the enormity of the hole Mycroft had had in his life. He doubted that his brother had ever considered himself lonely or consciously craved the company of others, but he knew that prior to meeting John the concept of longing for friendship would have seemed absurd to him too. It occurred to him, not for the first time, that he had been Mycroft’s closest friend. The thought made him feel small and cold. 

“About last night-“ he had said, intending to change his answer, to take back the word he’d said just to hurt John. But John had looked so unsettled that he thought perhaps an apology would be best. 

“You don’t need to worry about me, Sherlock. There’s nowhere I’d rather be.”

He looked at where his right leg sat flush with John’s left. He could feel the heat of John’s skin through the fabric and he imagined the warmth of John passing into him, banishing the dark thoughts. 

“I’m not lonely, Sherlock.” Mycroft’s voice sounded in his head. But had Mycroft ever known this?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title comes from "Overthrown" by Tom McRae


	7. A Spin Through the Neighborhood

Sherlock was bristling with discomfort. John could see it in his shoulders, in his eyes, in the way he held his glass. It had been a difficult morning for him, and even more difficult for his parents. Sherlock had been more or less behaving himself for the past couple of days and it seemed that all of his sullenness and bad behavior had been saved up for this trip into town.

They had started at the small cottage owned by Mr. Holmes’s particular friend, Carl Simmons, and his wife Gloria. Sherlock had not spoken a word over tea, but when Gloria pulled him aside to offer her condolences he had rolled his eyes and said “ _I’m_ sorry that you’re due to lose this house in six months or less due to your online gambling addiction.” Things had only gone downhill from there.

John had done his best to prevent the day from going this way. He had even offered to stay at the house with Sherlock while Mr. and Mrs. Holmes went visiting.

“Oh, don’t be silly,” Mrs. Holmes had said airily. “It’s only a few hours and these people knew Sherlock as a boy. They’re well used to him.”

Surely she was regretting it now, John thought as they sat in the village’s one and only pub, having been rushed out of the house of Mr. and Mrs. Carlisle and their daughter Jane after only twenty minutes. John hadn’t heard what Sherlock had said to Jane while he was discussing the weather with Mr. Carlisle but he was fairly certain he didn’t want to know.

Sherlock was sitting at a table on his own while his parents sat huddled together over a couple of untouched sandwiches, talking in low voices. John wasn’t entirely sure whether he should join their conversation, and he had just resolved to try to have a word with Sherlock when the sound of a scream from outside drew everybody’s attention. Sherlock’s head whipped around faster than anybody else’s, and he met John’s eyes for a moment before dashing out the door.

 

***

 

Sitting in the bar, Sherlock nursed his pint while trying to avoid John’s gaze. The day had been worse than he expected, and he knew it was entirely his own fault. He’d known it would be unpleasant, but from the moment that insufferable Gloria woman had given her grandiose speech about how the dead never really leave us he knew that he couldn’t suffer through an entire day of this. He felt gladder than ever that he had skipped the funeral, as he wasn’t at all convinced that he would have made it through without resorting to physical violence. He knew his parents would be cross and John would be disappointed, but the fastest way he could see to get out of this grotesque charade was to offend everybody as quickly as possible until they had no place else to go.

The plan had worked perfectly, but he felt somewhat guilty now that they were all stuck here at the sad little pub, drawing curious gazes from the bartender and the few locals who had dropped in for a late lunch. He supposed he would have to apologize eventually, and was wondering if he couldn’t enlist John to do it for him when he heard a woman screaming outside.

Happy for the distraction Sherlock ran out into the street, John at his heels. A young woman, late 20s, Sherlock thought, was standing outside a house tearing at her short-cropped blonde hair while laughing in an unsettling way. Tears were streaming down her face, over a grotesque smile.

“Why, that’s Jessie Mortimer. Diane’s girl. What’s happened to her?” Mrs. Holmes said, coming up behind them. Jessie cried out and collapsed to her knees, then started to pull flowers out of a planter at the side of the door. 

An older woman approached and put her hand on her shoulder gently. Jessie turned sharply and shouted, “Won’t be needing them! All gone, you see!” and shoved a handful of broken blossoms in her face. 

While everybody else gathered about the madwoman, Sherlock slipped around to the back of the house. He found a door there, unlocked as he had expected, and went inside. The door opened into the kitchen, which was empty and orderly. He passed through a low door into a dining room with an ovular table at the center. Seated at either end were two men with expressions of abject terror on their faces, seemingly frozen there. Dead, obviously. But how long? Sherlock had just begun to look for signs on the bodies when John burst in.

“Sherlock, what on earth are you-“ he stopped at the sight of the dead men. “Jesus, Sherlock! What happened here?”

“That is what I’m attempting to ascertain. No visible marks. Doesn’t seem to have been asphyxiation either going by the coloring.”

John dashed back outside for a moment before rejoining Sherlock.

“Police are on their way. I don’t want to start examining them properly until they get here. They may not be as understanding as the Yarders.”

Sherlock arched an eyebrow at that.

“Well, they don’t answer to Lestrade, anyway.”

In a village of that size it didn’t take long for the police to arrive. Or, Sherlock mentally amended, what passed for police out here. Upon their arrival they made a bit of a fuss about Sherlock being there until John took the one in charge aside and explained who they were. Her eyes lit up at the words “Sherlock Holmes” and she rushed over and shook his hand.

“Mr. Holmes, it’s an honor! I’ve read all about you, of course. You and your friend,” she added, tipping her head in John’s direction. Sherlock ignored her as he made his way around the room, taking in the full scene.

“What happened to the girl? Jessie?” John asked.

“Off at the house of a friend. A doctor’s in to see her; she seems to have gone quite hysterical.”

“I’ll need to question her as soon as possible,” Sherlock said, taking out his magnifier to examine a collection of bric-a-brac on a side table. A vase of flowers, several books, an assortment of scented candles and a candy dish made up most of it. He moved on to the window and examined the sill for markings.

“I don’t think you’ll get much out of her, Mr. Holmes. She was raving, last I saw.”

“All the same, she’s been witness to a double homicide. Perhaps we can glean something from her madness.”

After a few more minutes of surveying the room Sherlock turned his attention to John, who had been examining the bodies, closely supervised by the officers.

“Dead several hours, I’d say. Poison most likely, though I’m not sure how it was ingested,” he gestured at the empty table, “or what kind. I’ve never seen a poison leave a man’s face like that. If I didn’t know any better I’d say they’d been frightened to death.”

Sherlock ignored the last bit and focused on running through his mental index of poisons. None of the common ones fit the bill, but he felt sure a few minutes in his mind palace would get him there. In the meantime, he decided to question the woman.

 

She was in a small house a few streets away. A young woman named Julia answered the door and reluctantly let Sherlock in when she saw he was with the police.

“She’s in with the doctor right now, I really don’t think you ought to disturb her. She’s been through a terrible ordeal.”

John looked at her apologetically and said, “I know this is difficult, but she’s likely the only witness to a murder. We won’t be long, I promise.”

John could always be counted on to go through the motions of courtesy with these people, and his affable face and non-threatening stature generally engendered trust in the same people who regarded Sherlock with icy suspicion. It was incredibly useful in his work. Before John he’d had a much harder time with interrogations.

“How do you know Jessie?” he asked abruptly.

“We were in school together,” Julia said. “We both moved back here around the same time, a couple of years ago.”

“Then you’ll know the two men who died.”

“Jessie’s brothers. Jacob and Steven. They live in London but they came to visit last week.”

“What was the occasion?”

“I don’t know, Jessie didn’t say. I was a bit surprised, they were never very close. She’s so much younger than the two of them, see.”

“When was the last time you saw them?”

“I didn’t see them at all. I just got a text from Jessie last week that she’d have to miss our movie night because her brothers were in town.”

“Alright then, I’ll need to speak with her now.”

He didn’t wait for Julia to respond, but made his way into the next room. Jessie was sitting on a chair with her arms wrapped around her knees, weaving back and forth a bit. An older man sat in the chair next to her, speaking to her in a soothing voice. When she saw Sherlock she broke out into a grin.

“You’ve come about the kitchen sink, haven’t you?”

The doctor looked at Sherlock apologetically.

“I’m not sure what’s come over her, exactly. Some kind of hysterical fit, I think.”

“Don’t be stupid, she’s obviously under the influence of some sort of chemical agent.”

The doctor looked perplexed, but before he could reply Sherlock went to his knees in front of Jessie’s chair.

“What happened to your brothers, Miss Mortimer?”

She looked back and forth between Sherlock and the doctor, then leaned in close so only he could hear.

“They wanted to throw the flowers away but I said no, they were nice flowers. I think they’re angry with me.”

Sherlock looked over his shoulder to where John was standing hesitantly in the doorway.

“I believe we’re going to need to prolong our stay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title comes from "Last Stop: This Town" by Eels


End file.
